


Hesperidean

by Heubristics



Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar
Genre: Also Spider-Councils, Brief references to eye horror and general arthropod horror, Family, Friendship, Gen, Giant Spiders, Just A Lot of Spiders In General, Spiders, Who needs cider when you can have spider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:35:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22984144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heubristics/pseuds/Heubristics
Summary: The Debonair Sharpshooter has arranged for a party in the Forgotten Quarter, to mark the fulfillment of a grand plan years in the making. He has an announcement for all of London. A message about family and friendship, about nature versus nurture, about communal bonds and the strength of the masses.It involves a lot of spiders.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Hesperidean

There is a party tonight, in the Forgotten Quarter. Brightly coloured pavilions strung with electric lanterns where once were dig sites, tables of food and drinks and sweets placed around statues of fallen kings, a bandstand where a Rubbery oompah band cheerfully honks away...all clustered around a makeshift stage, built in front of what used to be a temple back in the days of the Fourth City. 

It is no match for the Carnival, yet there is a substantial crowd present tonight. The Debonair Sharpshooter has advertised this event widely, and word of mouth has spread it wider. He has promised a night of wonder, fun, and the reveal of something that will revolutionize London. And admittance was pennies at most.

They have come from all over London. Hunters from the Hill, pickpockets from Spite, bohemians from the Veilgarden and junior clerks from Ladybones. Dockers from Wolfstacks, urchins from the Flit, servants and courtiers from the Shuttered Palace, keepers from the Labyrinth and spies from Wilmots and illusionists from Mahogany Hall. The working-class and the middle-class and the idle rich mingle freely, attracted by novelty, free food, and the promise of spectacle. 

And there is spectacle. The Sharpshooter has called in favors by the score to provide entertainment for the evening. The audience has been treated to a selection of Carnelian poetry by a tiger minister from the Wakeful Court, urchin acrobats that swung on ropes and juggled knives, the showcasing of a genuine Winton Automobile from distant America, a Shroud séance that summoned forth the spirits of Fourth City horsemen, and a series of Third City-era ritual dances performed by an ancient troupe of tomb-colonists. 

And yet, all of this was only build-up. Organized and orchestrated by a man with a dream of dubious sanity and a vision of questionable rationality. The lure to attract the crowd before the final act: an act of revelation and of love.

~~~~~~

He could have done without the suit, however.

Hotshot Blackburn looks in the chipped mirror, adjusts his tie, and grimaces. He seemed...vulnerable, somehow, outside of the normal sable uniform. The outfit from Dauncey’s was of impeccable quality, but it just didn’t look _right_ ; the contours slimmed where they should have widened, narrowed where they should have broadened, accentuated youth rather than experience. Even his spectacles - writhing cosmogone lenses, the glasses of a Glazier - seem less impressive without the clothes to back them up. He looked like a freshly graduated Young Stag about to speak in front of a board of investors, wishing he had a cream pie to drop down someone’s trousers and lighten the mood. He looked _ridiculous._

But all this was necessary. This wasn’t about his comfort. This was for _them._ And their safety. If Hotshot Blackburn had to monkey about playing the safe, harmless gentleman to put the potential mob at ease...so be it. 

He adjusts his plum tie again and looks slightly less disgruntled, before he turns away from the mirror to the pavilion exit. 

“The Kashmiri Princess is off in seven, good luck Blackburn.” “Marksmen and medics are in their positions, let’s hope it’s a boring night eh?” “You’re a madman Blackburn, give ‘em a good show!” “Seamstress and the Expert have taken their seats, the Vesture ambassador is making their way in!” “Ready when you are, Blackburn!”

The Sharpshooter makes his way through a crowd of well-wishers and fellow conspirators. They are among the few in London who are already aware of his secret, of the nature of the act to come. They have helped carry out this plan, build the stage and bring the pavilions and spread word of the event. Revolutionaries, one and all. He murmurs genuine words of appreciation to them, for standing by him. 

He hopes they will continue to do so, come what may. As he clears the crowd, he steps toward a small door built into the side of the stage. Behind the door, a sloping ramp leads down into the earth. Here...here is where the final act awaits their cue. Hotshot has long discussed this day with them, and has talked with them even before...but something compels him still to the door. To exchange one last round of words, before it begins.

The Sharpshooter slips down into the darkness. Some time later, he emerges back into the light. What was said between him and the person waiting in the darkness below the stage is only for them to know. He slips back to the steps leading up backstage, ascends, and prepares for the beginning of the final act. He makes his way to the plush magenta curtains that shroud him from the audience, prepares to part them.

A hand reaches out, grabs the Sharpshooter by the coat and twirls him to the side behind a facade column. A familiar face gazes back at him: the soft green eyes and guarded smile of his oldest friend down here. Lord Daniel Whitethorn - the Adamant Progressivist, the Revolutionary Firebrand, Comrade Citizen - shakes his head. “Blackburn,” he nearly whispers, “Blackburn you fool. How many are out there?”

Hotshot beams, but the Progressivist can tell he is genuinely happy. “I dunno. Lost count after the first few dozen. I didn’t specify a limit on plus ones either!”

The Progressivist groans. “There are more than a few dozen, Blackburn. The newspapers are here. The constables are here. The Ministry is here. I’m pretty sure the Royal Family’s around here somewhere!”

Hotshot’s smile never ceases, but his eyes dart slightly. “Masters?”

“Three of them. Hearts, of course. Fires came as soon as we put the automobile on stage. And I’m fairly certain Mr Wines has abused eminent domain laws to claim the alcohol pavilion for itself.”

The Sharpshooter brightens. “Excellent. No plausible deniability then. Let’s see the Decency Evaluators censor their way out of this one.”

A long sigh. “Ski- Hotshot, you know what you are about to do tonight, right?”

“Drag this city kicking and screaming into a new era of cross-species harmony and cooperation?”

“No, I was thinking more like unleash a monstrous abomination on the masses-“

“Don’t call them that,”

“-and make yourself so dangerous to public health you won’t be able to walk out in public without the Constables hunting you down.”

The Sharpshooter falls silent at that. Whitethorn was right, of course. This plan...there was no going back from this. He’d likely burn whatever credibility he had with the Menace Eradicators, the dockers, and many others. A stint in New Newgate wouldn’t be enough to offset this, nor would temporary exile. 

But then he thinks of eyes without faces in dark cellars; boneless forms hidden beneath thick coats; the silent breath before a code-phrase is given; children that do not officially exist. His heart resolves. 

“Well then,” Hotshot shrugs with a grin, “Let them try and stop me.” He pulls free of Daniel’s grip. “If it does go wrong-“

“When it goes wrong,”

“- _if_ it goes wrong...will you still be here? Beside me?” 

Daniel Whitethorn laughs. It is almost like Hotshot remembers, from the college days. “Wouldn’t miss it for the heads of all the crowns in Europe.” He steps back, and tilts his head to hide the smile - and slight blush - from his cheeks. “Alright Blackburn, get this disaster started then!”

Hotshot laughs in return, and bows. He makes his way out from behind the facade column, and back over to the curtains of the temporary theatre. He can hear the clapping and hooting as the Kashmiri Princess - Esmeralda, he thinks - finishes her routine. It is almost time for the big unveiling. The act he has been preparing for years.

Showtime.

~~~~~

“Good evening, citizens and gentlebeings of London!” The voice of the Debonair Sharpshooter is a booming roar that echoes around the Forgotten Quarter, anachronistic resonance through the power of ahistorical dealings and what will one day be known as the microphone. “How are we doing?!”

The crowd howls back with anticipation. There are far more than a few dozen in the audience. 

“I hope you’ve been having a great time tonight! Tonight, I reveal to you a plan years in the making…a discovery that will change London as we know it...but before I reveal it…” He leaves the crowd on edge for a moment before continuing, his voice filling with dramatic solemnity, “I’d like to tell you about something near and dear to my heart.”

The Sharpshooter reaches into his coat, pulls a scrap of parchment, holds it aloft. A page from Madame Shoshona’s seminal work on Chiropteromancy, depicting a swarm of bats in mid-flight. Their wings flutter in fearful, eightfold symmetry. This is the sign of the Spider.

“The sorrow-spider!” Hotshot shouts, “A figure of contention! Industrious weaver? Lovable pet? Menacing thief of eyes?” The crowd murmurs among themselves as he continues, “Monster, or unique beauty? Opinion is divided, indeed.” Spectacles flash cosmogone as the Sharpshooter sweeps his gaze across the audience. “There is no question that the sorrow-spider is a being of complex meanings. They are as much a part of London as humans and rats! Their webs span our workplaces and our homes, our churches and sewers. Their silk is more durable than any from the nations of the Surface! Their tenacity and strength makes them lord of the spider-pits! And their hunger for our eyes...as much a part of London as the hunger of Jack, and the hunger of wells.”

Special Constables bristle as the Sharpshooter continues, his hands rising to grasp at some imagined monstrous form. “And then there are councils.”

An unspoken gesture, and tapestries large enough to cover a carriage unfurl from the stage rafters. The audience gasps as mythic horrors captured in silk reveal themselves to public sight. On the right, an androgynous godling with eight eyes and a cloak of woven spiders prepares a coup de grâce on a clockwork tyrant’s blazing heart. On the left, tomb-colonists jerk and dance in a spiral around an enormous arachnid behemoth formed from bandages and husks; directly behind the Sharpshooter, a goddess veiled in silk and chitin nurses a human infant with one set of arms while a thousand spiderlings dangle from her other three pairs. Horrors with names and long histories: the Tree of Ages, the Venderbight Beast, the Mother in Emerald.

“Oh yes, spider-councils are real. Do not think of them as mere nightmarish fantasy tales! Even amongst yourselves, there are those who have encountered them. Spiders unto spiders unto spiders, merged together in shapes like none seen on the Surface of the Earth!” He spreads his arms wide. Urchins gasp. “Monstrous, eldritch, overwhelmingly arachnid…sapient!”

A violent shake of the head “No, councils are no mere beasts! They are thinking beings! Cunning, intelligent, emotional beings just like you and I! As eloquent as any tiger or statesman, as thoughtful as any philosopher! And yet...” 

“Yes, yes, I know what is going through your heads at this very moment. What matters if these monsters can think and speak? They are still monsters, no? The Tree of Ages devours our ships whole. The Venderbight Beast rampages across the tomb-colonies. The zailors that set foot on Saviour’s Rocks do not always come back. Are they still not a threat to our lives?”

More than a few members of the audience nod their heads. Well, that was to be expected. Still, perhaps it was time to switch things up… “But what if I told you that this need not be the case?”

Now he has their attention. “Yes, we are inundated with stories of eye-stealing horrors and monstrous amalgamations. But humanity has heard many such stories before. Blood-sucking strigoi, men and women that transform into horrible lupine beasts, witches in league with Satan! And underneath them all, who do they really tell us to fear?” He eyes the audience. “The Other. The foreigner, the outcast, the unfavoured. We make monstrous that which is not like us. These spiders, these councils are no different. They come from different cultures, yes! They make war against us, yes! They are not human, yes! But this does not make them inherently abominable.”

Hotshot whips the cosmogone spectacles from his face, and the audience gasps. He has replaced his eyes multiple times, but they inevitably assume the same appearance: pitted, blackened husks that crackle with impossible colour. “Years ago, I asked myself a question: is a person’s capacity for good and evil dictated solely by the quality of their being? Of their background, their species? Or could even something as seemingly monstrous as a spider-council learn of empathy, compassion and justice? Is it nature that dictates morality? Or nurture?”

He can see Special Constables readying communication bats. Time to hurry this up. “I gave of myself to find the answer...and I have found it! I sowed ocular soil with colour and fire, and from the soil nurtured new life! That life was taught the values that all people should seek in life! The values of charity, of kindness, of empathy and equality and fraternity!” Now. “We can be more than who we were born to be!” _Now._ “Monstrosity is not dictated by the nature of one’s being, but by the actions they engage in!” NOW. “WE CAN BE BETTER THAN WE ARE!”

“TONIGHT, I AM PROUD TO PRESENT TO YOU MY CHILD,” there are tears in Hotshot’s eyes, “THE TREE OF LIBERTY!”

In the dusky evening blue of the Forgotten Quarter, there comes green. Green like new shoots after rainfall, like fresh creeping ivy, like the birth of a jungle. Green like growth, like gemstones, like jealousy. Chitin-green; sorrow-spider green.

Green overwhelms in an oncoming tide as sorrow-spiders pour from the former temple en masse. Dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of spiders that pool and swirl and coagulate in short-lived clusters. Rising screams and shouts are drowned out by clicking and rustling. As the wave of spiders flows past the curtains onto the stage proper, they roil and bubble upwards into each other, into shapes and forms that mingle and fall apart and merge all over again. They swell to the size of a carriage. An elephant. A steamboat. Larger. Legs entwine, conjoin with legs; mandibles hook into claws that become mandibles that become claws; thoraxes and abdomens congeal into each other; web bones stretch and flex as millions of gleaming ruby eyes slither across the surface of the mass. 

It is now, as the audience leaps from their seats and Ministry agents start calling for backup, that the final act is revealed.

A spider-council. No...something more bountiful. More fecund. A Hesperidean Spider-Council. 

The Tree of Liberty.

The Tree flows through shape after shape like a dream (but dreams are ephemeral, and the Tree is entirely too solid). Now they are a hunting spider roughly the size of a small church, a spider made of spiders made of spiders. Now they are a manchineel world-tree, manifold branches dripping with venom. Now they are an abominable arachnid mockery of a Hell-Prince. Now they are a chitinous hydra with a thousand segmented heads. Now they are Arachne parasitizing Minerva. Psychic energies draw in lesser spiders by the thousands, tidal waves of arachnids skittering in supplication from all around the Quarter as the Tree expands.

Hotshot sighs with contentment as spiders gush past his legs, and lets himself fall backwards into the embracing morass of arachnids. Liberty carries him higher and higher as they rise and move and flow together. “There is no need to panic!” he calls as the audience panics, “The Tree of Liberty is a true Londoner, born and bred! They have been fed on philosophy, history, and morality! Neither the Rocks nor nature's cruelty has shaped them!” Nobody is listening to him. “Humans and spiders _can_ live together in harmony!”

From his perch atop the Tree, he can see across the Quarter. The edges of the crowd are already fleeing, most of them eastwards. Sirens blare from the direction of London: Menace Eradicators and Special Constables alike will be here soon. Wines has drained the rest of the bar and taken flight alongside Fires while Hearts remains on the ground, pondering the Tree with an enigmatic expression. He can see the glint of countless scopes as his own forces prepare for an inevitable firefight. Hmmm. Daniel was right: this was a _spectacularly_ poor idea.

But Hotshot no longer cares.

“Oh, don’t be like that!” he cajoles the crowd, “Just listen!” A comforting hand atop Liberty’s carapace. A whisper to one of the spiders - it doesn’t matter which one, for what one hears all hear - “No more hiding, my little clatterclaws,” he murmurs, “I will protect you always, for as long as I am able.”

A rumbling vibration floods the area. People stumble and fall. The Tree of Liberty is purring.

“Go on and introduce yourself.”

The vibration dies down, and the shaking stops. Until the Tree of Liberty opens their ten thousand mouths... and in a unified drone, begins to sing.

_~~People of London~~We finally meet!~~And we must say~~You all have such lovely eyes~~_

~~~~~~

Those members of the audience that did not immediately flee are remarkably tight-lipped when it comes to what came after that. Few will admit to hearing Liberty’s words; none will admit (in public) to staying, or of hearing what the Sharpshooter said afterwards. The Ministry is always listening in to these kinds of things.

[ But most will agree that it was quite the finale.](https://www.fallenlondon.com/profile/Hotshot%20Blackburn)

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a headcanon because I was sad there was no actual spider-council companion in the game. What started as 77 spiders has evolved to something beyond my wildest expectations. 
> 
> I still don't have Cider.


End file.
